


la vie en rose

by petitmini (amoureux)



Category: Produce X 101 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Competition, M/M, Slow Burn, Student Council, like really the slowest of burns, sofa seat couple ftw, stan wooseong u cowards
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-06-24 17:41:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19728577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amoureux/pseuds/petitmini
Summary: council president, model student, mister perfect kim wooseok has always lived in a world of black and white, that is, until he meets hwang yunseong.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO THIS IS MY FIRST PDX FIC ON AO3 IM SHAKING
> 
> anw this is lovingly dedicated to the five other remaining people who actually ship wooseong lmaO JK BUT OK aaahhh this work is entirely fictional and i do apologize if i may have made wooseok OOC because i don't know him all THAT well (and i also may have projected my own personality onto his in this fic waayyy too much haha) ;; also this is a multichaptered work and the fun hasn't even started yet luvs so pls look forward to the ff chapters to be posted soon!

_he lives in a world of black and white._

kim wooseok has always been described as a model student. he’s every school’s coveted poster boy, every teacher’s favorite pupil, every mother’s ideal son. responsible, talented, handsome, hardworking, intelligent - you name it, he can be it.

he’s the one who comes to school the earliest, the one who leaves last. the kid who always has his necktie neatly tied, shirt cleanly tucked in, blazer perfectly ironed. the kid who heads student council meetings in the morning and teaches choreography in the dance club during afternoons. the kid who goes straight to the library during breaks without even thinking of eating first, lugging around a bunch of books in one hand and a pencil case in the other. the kid whose notes have neon page flags and a strictly implemented color coding system. the kid who doesn’t even have to ask the teacher if he did well because the answer is always yes. 

he - in the eyes of the entire school, the entire neighborhood, or even the entire goddamn city - is the embodiment of perfection.

so that’s what he tries to be. tries to be mister perfect, tries to be the star student, tries to be the flawless cover boy that everyone sees him as. he doesn’t know when it started, doesn’t know when the expectations started piling up on him, doesn’t know how people painted such a spotless, unblemished, unimpaired image of who he is (when he really isn’t), but either way, that’s where he’s come to stand - on the top of the reputational hierarchy, everyone looking up to him, watching his every move and evaluating even the littlest of things that he does.

kim wooseok lives in a world of black or white. he lives in a world where things can only be either one or the other: perfect, or imperfect. he lives in a world where people’s expectations forbid him from ever being the latter.

*

contrary to the rest of the human population, wooseok was actually anticipating the end of vacation and the start of the new school year. 

why, you ask? 

so that he can get his last year in high school over with, flee away from his damned school, and go to a college where no one knows him nor chokes him with their incessantly high standards.

he makes his way to school 2 hours earlier than everyone else like he always does, heads straight to the student council meeting room like he always does, and sorts through the list of freshmen coming in this year like how he’s supposed to. well, really, he’s not supposed to. but because kim wooseok is kim wooseok, whatever a student council president must do, he does tenfold - sometimes he thinks he even deserves to be paid for his work, because he makes the faculty and staffs’ lives a heckton easier.

you see, wooseok likes to think of his suffering as a rose, just to make things sound a little more beautiful. a rose that holds the promise of crimson velvet petals at the very end, though it stems from entangled thorn-studded vines constricting his throat - so dangerously wrapped around him that should he try to open up his mouth to speak the thorns would rupture through his skin. so wooseok keeps his mouth shut, keeps quiet, takes in whatever he’s given even when it’s far from fair.

an hour later, with wooseok having accomplished everything he needs to do, he hears soft knocks on the meeting room’s wooden door, and he’s pretty sure he knows who it is. “ah, sejin? come in,” wooseok calls out.

sejin walks in with a smile, greeting wooseok good morning along with his usual ninety-degree bow. sejin’s a nice kid, and is most probably the best vice president wooseok ever could have asked for - polite, punctual, hardworking, and most of all - not butting into wooseok’s business. he does what he’s told, helps wooseok in any way he can, and gives good feedback as well, but he never tried to overstep his boundaries, acknowledging wooseok’s authority as the president. sejin knows his own worth, yet, he manages to be humble at the same time. sejin is someone that wooseok is grateful for.

_unlike everyone else, who wants wooseok kicked out of his throne._

*

“hyung, did you hear? apparently there’s a really smart kid among the freshmen. he’s a MENSA member with an IQ of 132…” sejin says, reading from a sheet of paper in his left hand with his right hand covering his jaw that dropped in awe.

“and what about it?” wooseok snaps, blinking once, twice, as he realizes he reacted a tad bit too apprehensively to what sejin just said. “IQ isn’t everything. didn’t miss shin teach you in your personality development class that EQ matters more than IQ?” he asks with a chuckle, hoping it would cover up the harshness in his former remark.

“but he was given an award for being one of the most outstanding students in the province,” sejin reasons, “and he was the president in his previous middle school, too. i think he’d be a cool member to have in the student council, hyung! he could help the two of us out a lot - unlike everyone else in the council right now.” 

“uh, well… yeah, i guess he’d be great to have around?...” wooseok says blankly as he fumbles with his fingers. “who is he? we can go chat with him a bit tomorrow.” 

“his name is hwang yunseong!” sejin grins as he hands the paper to wooseok. “just take a look at his resume - it’s loaded.” 

wooseok gingerly takes the paper, scanning through it quickly. to say that he didn’t feel threatened would be a blatant lie - because he did. two years ago, wooseok came into the school with no credentials to his name, but with each passing day and week and month he somehow improved at an alarming rate, shining brighter and brighter, catching more and more attention from both the student body and the faculty, until he got where he is now. 

but here was this kid named hwang yunseong, coming right into the school with a heckton of awards and experience to his name.

as much as wooseok would like to deny it, the freshman’s name already brewed a bitter feeling within his chest. he could already feel the thorns around him wrapping his neck a little bit tighter.

*

kim wooseok did not have to look for hwang yunseong. rather, it was already strikingly obvious which one of the new students was him.

the first-day formalities had commenced, with wooseok inevitably leading most of them. he takes the effort to shake each new student’s hands, pretending not to notice when a few students squeal and cup their faces with the hands that had come into contact with his. but amidst all the chaotic fangirling and fanboying over wooseok’s good looks, there was a freshman telling his peers to calm down and stay in order, keeping all the students in the hall neatly lined up.

_ah, there you are._

_already making a name for yourself on the first day, aren’t you?_

wooseok politely excuses himself from the group of freshmen surrounding him, and makes his way to the man in question. “hwang yunseong, right?” wooseok smiles as he extends his hand towards the student. “i’ve heard a lot about you.”

yunseong turns around to face wooseok, seemingly flustered. he spaces out, as if he needed 20 more seconds to process what was happening, before he reaches for wooseok’s hand and gives it a light shake, soon followed by a bow. “ah- yes, that’s me. nice to meet you.” yunseong awkwardly tries to repeatedly look wooseok right in the eyes, only to shift his gaze somewhere else when wooseok stares back. it doesn’t take long for yunseong to excuse himself, running off to tell the rest of his class to get back in line.

 _huh_ , wooseok thinks. _what a strange kid._

*

a couple of weeks into the school year, the advisers of the freshmen sections have finally selected a candidate to be the first years’ representative in the student council. and, surprising no one at all, it’s hwang yunseong. (by unanimous decision. because literally all the teachers only had him in mind and no one else.)

the student council members give him a warm welcome on his first time attending the daily morning meetings, with byungchan and jinhyuk insisting that they have balloons and streamers as decorations to make the atmosphere more welcoming - and of course, wooseok lets them, although he knows very well that the two won’t bother cleaning up afterwards and wooseok will most probably be the one to tidy up the mess they made. (he doesn’t mind. he’s used to it.)

the members seem to like him, and sejin even lets him pick out a fluffy little marimong. sejin brought one of each color, with yunseong picking out a small purple one even when sejin insisted he take the rainbow sherbet one - the newest addition to sejin’s selection. yunseong reasons out that he likes the colour purple. wooseok remembers this - because purple just so happened to be wooseok’s favorite, too.

his eyes flash to the purple marimong on his own bag, and his eyes twitch in disgust. maybe he’ll ask sejin for a new one. he doesn’t want to be matchies with hwang yunseong, not now, not anytime soon.

*

hwang yunseong quietly does what he’s tasked to do. he catches all the freshmen violating the dress code - all the boys wearing hoodies without actually having any uniform or undershirt underneath, all the girls with skirts too short. he’s nothing amazing, in wooseok’s opinion, but nothing too bad either. wooseok thinks he might just forget his dislike for yunseong, because the kid is just way too quiet and clean to dislike.

that is, until wooseok finds his name in the list of students auditioning for the dance club.

he’s utterly pissed for some reason, perhaps at how this kid is pursuing pretty much everything that wooseok is pursuing at the moment. he tries to flush out his annoyance with a sigh, because the auditions would be starting anytime soon and the perfect wooseok, like the perfect club president he is, has to flash a perfect smile at each one of the auditioning freshmen.

he, along with kookheon and hangyul, easily breeze through the auditions, finding a few kids that were filled to the brim with potential, and some that unfortunately just won’t make the cut. it’s wooseok and kookheon’s last year in high school, meaning that they’ll be leaving hangyul behind as the new president once they graduate, but with the talents of hangyul’s batchmates and the newly auditioned freshmen, they don’t really have much worries. wooseok believes they can easily prepare the club to stand without them next year.

but of course, a name on the list is still the name on the list, and hwang yunseong just had to be the last one to audition. wooseok internally curses the korean alphabetical order, thinking he might have ended the day with a decent mood had hwang yunseong only been one of the kids who auditioned first, but nope - he’s last on the list, and wooseok’s pretty sure he’ll be leaving school today in a horrible mood.

sure enough, he hears two quiet knocks on the door. “kindly come in, hwang yunseong,” wooseok languidly says, hoping the two other people beside him don’t notice how unenthusiastic he is.

hwang yunseong walks in wearing a white pullover and some track pants, attempting to make eye contact with his three audience members but miserably failing, with him ending up staring at the ground instead. he’s nervous. the three would be fools not to notice that.

“hwang yunseong from class 1-A, right?” kookheon grins. “come on, don’t be so nervous! we don’t bite,” he coos.

“yeah, kookheon hyung and i don’t bite,” hangyul adds, “although sometimes, wooseok hyung might.” hangyul raises a taunting eyebrow at wooseok, and wooseok knows his own face is sending hangyul the message _“lee goddamn hangyul i will destroy you with my own two hands.”_ hangyul laughs it off, proceeding to take yunseong’s flash drive and plugging it into the speaker.

wooseok’s eyes scan through yunseong, noticing his trembling hands and red ears, somewhat feeling a bit of sympathy for the kid. “show us what you’ve got,” he says, putting back on his signature pearly white kim wooseok smile, hoping it eased off his nervousness.

the music comes on, and the three instantly know that it’s a brian puspos choreography - after all, every dancer knows brian puspos, and everyone who knows brian puspos knows about his iconic wet the bed choreography. wooseok slightly worries for yunseong, with how all three of them had learned this routine before, with hangyul setting such a high standard (having executed it almost identically to the original). wooseok thought yunseong would have gone for a softer routine, something more on the contemporary dance spectrum, not this kind of routine you’d want to dance to whilst wearing a muscle tee and ripped jeans.

kookheon lets out a loud whistle. “hangyul, a challenger has come,” he quietly chuckles.

wooseok doesn’t know if yunseong can hear their conversation or not, but if he did, he was doing quite a good job at pretending not to. he calmly starts the routine with the intro, coolly and carefully. it’s alright, wooseok thinks, and from the intro alone he can tell that yunseong does know how to dance, but he hasn’t seen anything impressive yet.

that is - until chris brown’s voice comes in to sing the first verse.

yunseong slides his arm across his body, softly but swiftly, and cuts it off with a sharp snap. he pops at every beat, moving fluidly according to the melodic pauses in between. it’s not the least bit identical to the original, nor to hangyul’s version. rather, it’s as if he’s taken each step and turned it into his own. smooth like honey in the middle, but rigid at the edges. it’s something wooseok hasn’t ever seen before, not in his entire lifetime. and as much as he would like to act unimpressed, his jaw had already dropped before he even noticed.

wooseok doesn’t know the best way to describe it, really. it’s like you took a ballerina and fused it with a hip hop dancer and stuffed a metronome inside its brains while teaching it how to breakdance. it’s like frankenstein, albeit a dancer version. yeah. that’s the best thing his mind could come up with at the moment.

the music eventually stops, but wooseok really wishes it didn’t.

*

hwang yunseong passes the audition, of course.

wooseok hates to admit it, but he’s actually watched the video recording of yunseong’s performance at least ten times by now. he hates how half of him is pissed at yunseong for dancing so well, but what he hates even more is how the latter half of him is admiring yunseong for dancing so well. wooseok won’t acknowledge that yunseong’s a better dancer than him, not yet, but he can’t help but admit that yunseong’s style is something he hasn’t seen anywhere else. 

so there’s a new kid on the block with good grades, good leadership skills, good looks, and even good dancing skills. and his name is hwang yunseong. and he’s a freshman. yet he’s pretty much this close to surpassing the reputation wooseok has built for himself over the past two years.

 _jesus_ , wooseok thinks, _the universe must loathe me._

the next morning, he goes through his usual routine - coming to school at an ungodly hour, preparing what needs to be prepared for the student council, sparing a few minutes for a quick scan past his notes for today’s classes. he then prints out a few copies of the list of new members, proceeding to the freshmen’s classrooms to post them in each one.

wooseok arrives at the last classroom, the furthest one from the stairs - class 1-A, taking a look at his watch before he opens the door. _7:15am._ he still has forty-five minutes before everyone else arrives, so he makes a mental note to start drafting the proposal for the upcoming school festival while he has some spare time. he takes his stapler out of his pocket with one hand, list of audition passers in the other. but as he pushes the door open, he sees a familiar face.

_again, the universe must loathe me._

hwang yunseong is there, all alone in the classroom, flipping through a textbook with a highlighter in his hand. 

yunseong’s eyes widen in surprise as he scrambles to get up, greeting wooseok. “a-ah, good morning, wooseok-sunbaenim.” he mumbles, still not lifting himself up from his ninety-degree bow position.

“no need to be so formal around me, kid,” wooseok sighs. “hwang yunseong, right? just call me hyung,” he smiles as he gives the younger boy a pat on the shoulder.

thing is, wooseok does resent yunseong. resents him for being so naturally talented, resents him for being good at everything from the start when wooseok had to build himself from the ground up. resents how, while wooseok is panting and gasping for air from running for so long, striving to get ahead of everyone, there’s a hwang yunseong just a few strides behind him who barely broken a sweat. but that does not mean that wooseok wants to treat yunseong badly. be it annoyance, hatred, irritation, or bitterness - wooseok knows how to keep it all hidden inside one dark corner of his heart. he’s still going to be friendly, he’s still going to acknowledge yunseong, and is still going to try his best to be a respectable senior to him - because that is who kim wooseok is expected to be.

so he offers the boy a smile.

and the boy smiles back.

“ah, yes, wooseok-hyung…” the boy raises himself up to look wooseok in the eye, with the corners of his mouth curling up into a smile and his ears turning shades of strawberry red. he immediately averts his gaze, though, staring down at the floor again. it’s clear that wooseok is making him flustered. and though this isn’t a new sight to wooseok (he’s had a whole lot of people turning into blushing messes while he’s not even doing anything at all), the surprising thing is -

_wooseok actually found it cute._


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wooseok likes to think of yunseong as a balloon - translucent and simple, yet you’ll never know whether oxygen or carbon dioxide or helium or some other kind of poisonous gas is inside until you pop it open. so that's what kim wooseok tries to do - tries to make him pop, to figure out what's on his mind, once and for all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello hello hello sorry this took too long but my heart needed some time to heal after the final ep before i got back to shipping wooseong despite you know what. HAHAHA i'm so sorry for those who waited!!! and a lil note, i included some other idols in this chapter i made their personalities kinda.... annoying..... but do note that all of this is fictional ok haha i barely know them other than by name and by face so this is most probably OOC i just needed some other names to squish into the story

_hwang yunseong was a mystery._

he wore his heart on his sleeve most of the time, yet wooseok could never decipher what goes on in his head. wooseok finds himself thinking about hwang yunseong in the middle of chemistry class, and he decides on likening yunseong to a balloon - translucent. simple. yet, you’ll never know whether oxygen or carbon dioxide or helium or some other kind of poisonous gas is inside until you pop it open. it’s a horribly nerdy metaphor, but wooseok figures that any kid with an IQ of 132 is probably a nerd anyways, so it suits him.

 _this is what wooseok knows:_

first, yunseong barely reacts to anything. hangyul and kookheon were literally all over him during yunseong’s first day in the dance club, acting like fans losing themselves over their emotional support kpop boy, but yunseong just stared at them with blank eyes and clasped hands. everytime yunseong dances in front, there’s always dozens of pairs of eyes staring at him and him only, ignoring everyone else dancing alongside him. it pisses wooseok off, and wooseok wonders whether people would look at him or at the younger boy if the two of them were to ever dance together.

second, yunseong is ticklish around his waist area. byungchan, being the lively rascal that he is, somehow got the poor boy into a tickle fight with him and yunseong was gasping for air the moment byungchan’s hands reached his torso. you could say yunseong owes wooseok his life; he’d probably have suffocated to death from laughing too much had wooseok not nagged byungchan to get back to work.

third, yunseong’s a regular at the library as well, just like wooseok, lugging around a thick notebook and one pen as he scans the shelves for textbooks. sometimes, he brings a laptop instead, fingers moving at the speed of light, stopping a few times to furrow his brows in confusion and squint at the screen, only to begin typing again. 

fourth, yunseong’s a bit of a sassy brat, lowkey rolling his eyes whenever jinhyuk randomly starts babbling about his love for elsa and frozen during council meetings. but he’s a nice kid, too - helping sejin stich some marimongs, bringing snacks for the rest of the council members, and performing first aid for kookheon when he sprained his ankle during dance class.

and fifth, yunseong definitely has a thing for wooseok. there’s _something_. wooseok knows; knows that yunseong’s eyes fly to him whenever wooseok isn’t looking, knows the tremor in his hands and the flush in his cheeks whenever wooseok approaches him. (wooseok lowkey thinks it’s adorable, but he’ll never admit it.)

_but this is what wooseok doesn’t know:_

he doesn’t know why yunseong never attempts to steal the spotlight, never tries to get any attention on himself. everyone in the dance club is pretty much in awe of his dancing skills, but he never volunteered to teach choreography, nor did he ever volunteer to be the center in any of the planned performances. he never speaks up in council meetings and just does what he’s told, passively writing down notes, nodding, and twirling his pen in his hand. 

wooseok also doesn’t know why yunseong comes to school so early in the morning, nor does he know the reason why yunseong also goes home so late. he’s had to bump into yunseong at the front gates every morning and every afternoon for an entire week now, and baffles him why yunseong would force himself to go to school with heavy eyelids and dark circles when he could’ve let himself sleep for another hour or so.

and most of all, wooseok doesn’t know why he’s the one making yunseong flustered - doesn’t know if the boy just looks up to him, or if he has a crush on him, or if he plainly feels nervous and threatened in wooseok’s presence.

see, if yunseong liked wooseok then he would have talked to him, right? wooseok thinks it’s stupid - constantly being around the person you’re interested in but not even making the slightest attempt to start a conversation other than saying “hello” or “good morning”. throughout all the times that they’ve ran into each other it’s always wooseok who’s struggling to get rid of the awkward silence. perhaps yunseong doesn’t like him. perhaps not.

but if he admires wooseok then he would have typically tried to follow wooseok’s footsteps or impress him, but yunseong, even with all the skill and proficiency packed into his brain up to his fingertips, has been keeping an awfully low profile. if he feels threatened by wooseok then that doesn’t even make any sense, because he hasn’t shown even the littlest sign of competitiveness. 

hwang yunseong was one hell of an inexplicably mysterious balloon, and wooseok wanted to make him pop - to figure out what’s on his mind, once and for all.

*

so kim wooseok tried to make him pop.

wooseok did try. emphasis on the word _try_.

wooseok tried, tried to ask everyone else about him, but no one knows any more than wooseok himself does. the goons over at the dance club only know him as the kid who dances well and speaks little. student council members only know that half his school bag is filled with snacks and cup ramen (and byungchan of course knows that yunseong is ticklish around the waist but that information is useless). the teachers only say he’s quiet, kind, and diligent. wooseok wanted to try to ask yunseong’s classmates, but he knew it would sound suspicious for _the_ kim wooseok himself to go and ask random freshmen about a certain student when wooseok sees the boy everyday and could just go and personally ask yunseong on his own.

that’s exactly what wooseok did - personally asking yunseong on his own. it should’ve been easy, right?

_it wasn’t._

like any other day, without even having to try, wooseok and yunseong pass by the front gates at exactly the same time. wooseok greets him with a smile, and yunseong bows to return the greeting; letting out a muffled “good morning” past the white cloth mask on his face. wooseok planned this out - he had two cans of coffee in his bag, one for himself and one for yunseong, hoping they could drink it together over a nice morning chat, but before wooseok could even bring it up, yunseong already took his leave and went dashing into the building with his long legs. wooseok tried to catch up, but his tiny physique can only do so much.

but that’s alright - wooseok had a plan B. he pretended to be checking up on the freshmen’s classrooms, though he rarely ever does that. it was just to have an excuse to pass by their floor, because he’s sure yunseong would be the only person there. he opens every classroom door, takes a peek inside,

but hwang yunseong is nowhere to be found.

wooseok’s getting pissed, but worry not; being the man that he is - he had a plan C. wooseok made his way to the student council room, remembering that there 50 more forms that were yet to be printed, so he messaged yunseong as he was on his way there, asking if yunseong could lend him a hand. wooseok smiles to himself, in awe of how smart he is, thinking he’d finally have hwang yunseong in the palm of his hand.

but as wooseok opened the door to the council meeting room, he was surprised to find an entire hwang yunseong, carrying a stack of paper in his hands - which wooseok thinks is most probably the leftover forms that had to be printed.

yunseong squeaks, in a voice that wooseok swore was arial font size 5 (or even smaller). “ah, wooseok-hyung, i saw your text, but… i’ve finished printing everything. i’ll go back to my classroom now,” he mumbles, staring down at the papers, obviously avoiding wooseok’s gaze. he laid the stack of paper down on the table, and dashed out of the room.

kim wooseok tried, and in everything that kim wooseok tries to do, he succeeds.

but when it came to trying to talk to hwang yunseong, he failed.

*

during lunchtime, wooseok makes his way to the library as usual, thinking yunseong might be there, too. he forms a new plan: he’ll follow yunseong as yunseong searches for books. he’ll try to take the same book yunseong seems to have his eyes on, so that their hands land on top of each other like characters always do in every single romance kdrama. and when that happens, wooseok can start up a conversation, naturally accompanying yunseong to sit at the same table as him. it’s a great plan. foolproof. hwang yunseong has no means of escape now, wooseok thinks.

but before wooseok could even reach the library, he was greeted by a group of three girls, all wearing pink socks with short skirts barely reaching the minimum length and lunch bags studded in rose gold and glitter. he doesn’t even need to look up to know who they are.

it’s the accelerated student, genius, class president jeon somi, accompanied by her two friends kim doyeon and chinese transferee zhou jieqiong. if wooseok is the top 1 student in the batch of seniors, these three are the top 2 to 4 running right after him, always at his neck.

“and where are you going, kim wooseok- _sshi_ ?” somi growls, putting emphasis on the formalities, obviously wanting wooseok to regret arguing with her during the last term of sophomore year because somi used to always call him _wooseok-oppa_ before it happened. 

_kim wooseok has been so caught up in trying to pop that mysterious, bothersome little balloon - that he’s forgotten all the other things he has to attend to._

see, being kim wooseok is tiring. look one way and people in the other direction will complain about you not looking at them. and then you change your line of vision, but everyone else you’re not looking at will complain yet again. wooseok wishes he had a thousand eyes so that he could keep one eye each on everyone and shut them up, but unfortunately, he only has two.

“i’m going to the library. mind if i ask what’s the matter, miss jeon?” wooseok snaps in return, no signs of backing down.

“wooseok-sshi, i think you’ve forgotten,” doyeon sighs, “there’s supposed to be a meeting today for the senior batch’s formal ball.”

“and what about it?” wooseok replies. “that’s something that you yourselves proposed. you’re the president of class A, miss jeon, and you for class B, miss kim. isn’t this supposed to be your responsibility, not mine?”

“so you’re just gonna stand there and do nothing? you’re a senior too, kim wooseok,” somi glares. “do you think you can use all your other responsibilities as an excuse to escape from this? i hate to break it to you, but you can’t do that.”

“ _you’re right, somi-sunbaenim. he can’t do that.”_

an unfamiliar voice comes from past the library door, and all four of them turn to take a glance at who it is.

wooseok blinks. blinks once, twice, and thrice. he reaches for his eyes, instinctively thinking to wipe his glasses, but he realizes he wore contact lenses instead of glasses today.

\---

_it sucks to be kim wooseok, but he’s used to it._

it’d be a lie for him to say he doesn’t mind. he does. wooseok makes his every single move, takes every single step, breathes every single breath knowing he’s being watched, that even the slightest bit of imperfection will catch someone’s eye. he thinks of how somi and her gang hates his guts, thinks of how jieqiong’s father is the head of a top university in shanghai that he’ll never get into because he just had to pick a fight with jieqiong’s best friend. thinks of how many new angry subtweets he’ll find when he searches up 10 different censored variations of his name on twitter later at night. but he’s used to it. no matter what he does, it’ll always happen, anyways. so he lives with it, trying to feign ignorance. trying to focus on what matters: his family, his real friends, his future, his accomplishments, and himself.

_it sucks to be him, and everyone seems to want to make it suck even worse._

\---

wooseok never imagined, not in a million years, that he’d ever be seeing the scene unfolding in front of him at the moment.

_it was hwang yunseong._

“he can’t do that, can he?” wooseok stares in disbelief as he hears a voice he never knew yunseong had in him, upsizing from what once was arial size 5 into times new roman bold size 72. “he can’t use all his other responsibilities as excuses, because they’re not excuses. they’re rights. they’re privileges.” yunseong coolly says as he walks to stand beside wooseok.

“oh, so you’re that hotshot freshman,” somi taunts as she rolls her eyes. “how cute, kim wooseok, you have a _hoobae_ defending you. must be nice to rely on younger people for support.”

“must be nice to pick on students just because they’re younger, somi-sunbaenim.” yunseong heaves. “wooseok-hyung is mainly in charge of watching over the entire school population, and the seniors are only less than a third of that. if he still has to take care of all the seniors’ affairs, then your positions shouldn’t have been appointed in the first place.”

wooseok stares intently at yunseong, still in shock of how the boy seems so different from how he usually acts. he knew yunseong could be a bit of a brat, but that side of him only began to show itself when he warmed up to the other members of the student council. but now here he was, talking to jeon somi who he’s probably never looked in the eye before, braver than ever.

wooseok’s eyes trace down his silhouette, from his hair to his serious gaze that threatened to eat the three seniors up. his shoulders, his straightened back, all showing no signs of fear - 

until wooseok got to look at the two clasped hands yunseong was hiding behind his back, trembling, nervously fidgeting, exhibiting the side of yunseong that wooseok had been familiar with.

the kid was shaking. the kid was nervous. the kid probably fears for his life, going up against somi and her friends like that, but here he was: performing as if he were an actor in a stageplay, molding himself into a fearless main character, even though his entire existence was quivering deep inside, wanting to run to the backstage.

the kid was doing all of this; doing all of it for wooseok.

it sucks to be kim wooseok, and no one has ever tried to make it suck less. 

_that is, until hwang yunseong came around._

*

the fight ended up with somi and her friends retreating out of embarrassment, especially when students passing by had heard what yunseong replied to her.

as soon as the girls left, wooseok could see yunseong deflating into his usual self - eyes drooping back downwards, shoulders bending a bit forward, hands brought back to his sides, still fidgeting in anxiety. the amount of students staring in awe of yunseong didn’t make it any better, either.

so wooseok thinks it’s about time to repay the favor, to at least save the boy from the situation as consolation for the deed he’s done for wooseok. he takes yunseong by the hand, leading him to the rooftop, running away from people’s uncomfortable gazes.

when they get there, wooseok sits on the right corner furthest from the door. it’s his favorite spot, and he then invitingly taps the space beside him, asking yunseong to take a seat. the younger, as usual, hesitates before complying, scratching his ear out of shyness, reverting back to talking in arial font size 5 to ask if wooseok was really sure that it’s okay for yunseong to sit that close next to him. 

wooseok is relieved he brought his bag with him, because he can finally give yunseong that can of coffee. he takes the two cans out, opens one first, and hands it to yunseong before opening the other for himself.

“i wanted to give you this earlier this morning,” wooseok starts, “but you ran off too quickly before i could. you look like you need it right now more than ever though,” he teases, glancing at yunseong who looks like all the life had been sucked out of him after that confrontation with somi.

yunseong stares blankly into nothingness, showing no response to what wooseok just said. he just lifts his hand and tilts his head upward to sip some of his coffee, only to return back to his initial position, staring at the exact same spot.

“uh… yunseong?” wooseok calls out, and yunseong slightly jumps in surprise. “i’m talking to you.”

“i- uh- ah- i’m, i’m sorry,” yunseong nervously stutters, scratching the back of his ear again with his free hand. “i- i kind of have a bad habit of spacing out,” he explains.

“i can see that,” wooseok chuckles, trying to lighten up the atmosphere. “i can’t blame you, though; if i were you i’d probably be spacing out right now too.”

yunseong’s eyes slightly widen at wooseok’s statement, and he goes back to spacing out - except this time, he’s looking down towards the ground, and wooseok mentally berates himself for saying something that made the boy feel even worse.

wooseok knows exactly what he should say next, but he doesn’t know why it’s so hard to say it out loud. it’s a lump in his throat, something he’d rarely ever admit, especially when it comes to his newfound competitor hwang yunseong. but he has to say it - not because he wants to, but he knows it’s what’s right, that it’s what yunseong deserves.

“i- thank you, for earlier.” wooseok blurts, short and sudden, as if the words were choked out of him. “you were cool back there. cooler than i could ever be.” he stammers, and this time it’s his turn to scratch his head and stare at the ground.

he expected yunseong to reply with thank you, and his mind was already preparing a dozen of other things to say right after so that he could keep the conversation going, like asking what yunseong had for lunch, what book he was reading when he was in the library, whether he likes his coffee black or with milk-

“that’s not true though, hyung.”

but yunseong’s abrupt statement interrupts wooseok’s train of thought.

“i- i didn’t do it to look cool, i knew you could have probably said something better, but…” yunseong trails, looking at wooseok only to look away once again, burying his face in his hands. “i just couldn’t stand hearing them bother you like that. it made me angry. you don’t deserve that.”

it’s wooseok’s turn to be speechless, and he feels the heat rush to his cheeks. before he knows it, the corners of his mouth are already curling up, and his hand is moving on its own, propelling itself to gently pat yunseong’s head.

“thank you, yunseong. it means a lot.”

the freshman takes his face out of his hands, and stares up at wooseok in surprise, while wooseok uncontrollably gazes back at him tenderly.

their eyes meet, and wooseok doesn’t understand. 

_yunseong is the balloon, but wooseok feels like he himself is the one popping._

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, thank you so so much for reading! it means a lot <3 i hope y'all found this chapter alright!  
> talk to me anytime at twitter.com/hwang_mini and curiouscat.me/hwang_mini

**Author's Note:**

> thank u so much for reading! pls do anticipate the next update hehe i love u all <3
> 
> if you guys have any feedback feel free to say hi @  
> twitter.com/hwang_mini  
> curiouscat.me/hwang_mini


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